Workflow Applications.
Workflow applications are software applications which automate some or all of the steps of a business process. Typically, most business processes have some steps which require human input, such as entry of specific text or selection of specific values. Other steps can be automated and so be handled by the software application. For example, once a user has selected a product, the software may automatically insert a price; or once a user has selected or typed in a purchaser, a previously recorded purchaser address may be automatically filled in.
Product ordering, finance, and billing/payment processes are typically good candidates for workflow applications. For example, a purchase order within a single company may require authorizations from multiple departments. Such a purchase order can be initiated by a requesting party within the company, and then be forwarded electronically, via software, through multiple departments within the company. The requester of the purchase order can give the authorization when all required departments have approved. If a workflow application is strictly internal to one company, the integrity and the validity of the data processed by the application can often be readily maintained by a single workflow application (or by multiple applications which are designed as an integrated “team” of software elements).
Sales and Billing
Small sales and service transactions are often done “in the field”, for example at a store where a product or service company (or a delivery service working on their behalf) delivers a product to a commercial enterprise or to a home. Such sales transactions typically involve hardcopy paperwork—for example, a bill of sales, a receipt, and/or electronic fund transfer authorizations (for example, credit cards or electronic checks). In such cases, both parties (seller and purchaser) typically need to exchange and retain valid copies of the pertinent documents.
These product/service sales and product/service billing situations provide another business context where workflow applications may be appropriate and helpful. A complication arises in such cases, however, because here the paperwork (which may be substantial in volume) is typically between different companies or organizations—typically between a purchaser and a seller. As a result, the paperwork—whether actual paper, or digital “paperwork”—is not internal to any one organization. Creating copies for each separate party, and establishing, maintaining, and validating the data integrity and security of paperwork exchanged between different companies, may then be a significant challenge.
Direct Store Delivery (DSD).
As noted above, paperwork exchanges may occur outside of an office context, adding a further challenge to maintaining data integrity and validation. Consider for example direct store delivery (DSD) applications. In deliveries from a distributor or product manager directly to a store (or home consumer or other off-business-site customer), purchase orders, bills, and payments may all be exchanged at a consumer's front door, at a loading dock, or in the lobby/reception area of an office or factory.
In DSD applications, the DSD driver provides the bill (invoice) of delivered material to the store keepers (or retailers, or home consumer). That bill amount will be paid instantly or later. Store keepers (or retailers) may also provide some kind of receipts to DSD drivers. These bills and receipts exchange happen in-the-field, at retailer location.
In all these transactions there is great deal of paper work involved, and typically both the parties exchange their bills physically. For customary record-keeping purposes, DSD suppliers (or DSD drivers) should maintain all these bills (invoices) and receipts for about ten to twenty years.
DSD as an Example of Workflow Applications: In this document, many examples, applications, and exemplary methods may be based on exemplary Direct Store Delivery (DSD) use cases or DSD contexts. It will be noted that DSD examples and use cases are employed for purposes of illustration. The present system and method may be applied broadly to many different applications and contexts where transactional documents are employed, agreement documents are employed, or more generally to many types of workflow paperwork. Similarly, throughout this document, references to DSD persons or contexts, such as “DSD drivers”, may be understood to refer more broadly to any personnel engaged in workflow activities.
Advantages of Paper Bills and Receipts (Hardcopy)
Still paper bills and receipts are used due to the following advantages:                Paper bills and receipts cannot be tampered with easily. If they are tampered with, that can generally be readily ascertained through visual inspection.        Easily detectable forgery signatures: Bills and receipts are generally validated through hand-written signatures. Legitimate hand signatures leave signature pressure lines on the papers. This can be used to ascertain and identify the forgery signatures.        Company Stamps—which are physically stamped onto the paper—are also considered as the authentication sign of the company(s) or parties involved in the transaction.        Hardcopy paperwork is a familiar and established way of conducting business.        
Disadvantages of Paper Bills and Receipts (Hardcopy)
Paper bills, paper receipts, and other physical hardcopy have distinct, substantial disadvantages as well.                Daily bill submissions: DSD drivers (or any workflow staff-persons) need to collect all bills for each day from the other parties to the sales transactions, and the DSD drivers must submit the bills to a home office or central office. If even one bill is misplaced, that may lead to billing and record-keeping inconsistencies.        Bill preservation and searching of bills: Workflow organizations (for example, DSD suppliers) need to preserve the bills for an extended time. If there are many bills, then it is very difficult to maintain all the paper records and to search for specific bills.        Bills can not be duplicated or recovered: Old bills can not be duplicated with same kind of features as the original bill. If the bills are torn or otherwise in a non-usable state, then recovering the bills to the same state as the original bill may be difficult or impossible.        
Electronic Scanning and Storage (Softcopy)
Pure usage of paper bills and paper receipts has the disadvantages noted immediately above. For this reason it has become common to have paper documents scanned and stored electronically. However, this solution presents problems as well.
Cost of scanners, printers, papers: In Workflow applications, such as direct sales delivery (DSD), both the parties to the transaction (bill distributor and bill receivers) should have the scanners and printers at the location where business is transacted, for example at individual stores. There is some cost involved in purchase of scanners, printers, toner, and the paper itself.
Carrying scanners, printers, and papers: In some of the workflow applications, the bill distributor (typically the seller or delivery service for a product or service) needs to bring along scanners, printers, and papers during business travel. Carrying and handling of these items (along with the actual goods for sale) adds an extra burden for the delivery or service personnel.
Not environmentally friendly: Scans originate from paper. Using paper is not good for the environment, since paper is made from trees.
Tampering: Scanned copies, such as Portable Document Format (PDF) copies of printed bills and receipts, may be easily altered. For example, a scanned copy could be altered before transmission from one location to another, with the recipient having no way to know the PDF file was altered. In some embodiments, the present system and method addresses this deficiency.
Bill searching: Scanned copies are typically image copies, and cannot be readily searched for text or numeric data. Text recognition may be performed on such documents, but this requires extra processing. Further, handwritten information, as may be written on a print document by persons engaged in a sales transaction, often does not lend itself to reliable text recognition.
Transaction Validation Challenges
Sales documents, bills, and receipts are typically validated by the parties involved in the transactions. This conventionally involves signatures, which may be done by pen-and-ink on paper, and which can then be scanned; validation is also done increasingly by signature by stylus on a contact sensitive electronic display screens/tablets. Even these approaches have disadvantages, especially for documents which must be transmitted from one party to another.
Signature validation: Signatures captured from paper by a scanner will not be same as actual signatures (since they lack the indentations made in paper by actual signature), and so may be less reliable for signature validation. Signatures which are originally captured electronically on tablets could easily be digitally “swapped” with false signatures by a malicious party.
Tampering: Softcopy, such as PDF scans of printed and hand-signed documents, can be tampered and altered easily (with the possible exception of cases where digital signatures are not used).
Digital Signatures and Digital Watermarks
Another method used for document validation is a digital signature, which is a mathematical process to demonstrate the authenticity of digital documents (for example, to authenticate PDF scans of print bills and receipts). Digital signatures can be validated mathematically by a recipient, which provides the recipient with a degree of confirmation the message was created by a known sender (authentication), that the sender actually sent the message (non-repudiation), and that the message was not altered in transit (integrity).
Here again, however, there are disadvantages with digital signatures.                Digital signature requires keys (specific sequences of digital symbols) from 3rd parties, which involves some cost.        If a printout of the finished document is made, the printed document does not retain the digital signature. This confines validated document use to electronic use only, when hardcopy may at times be preferred during some processing. If a picture of the transaction document was taken from other device (like mobile phone or camera), digital signatures will again not be retained.        If either a public or private key is changed, then the document sender (typically a seller or bill distributor) needs to maintain all the previous keys as well.        If the public and/or private key is changed, then validating the old signed documents becomes a difficult process.        Digital signatures validity is less than 10 years. If any document needs to be retained for more than 10 years, digital signature does not provide a security solution.        If, over time, a decision is made to change the encryption and/or decryption algorithms, then validating the old signed documents is again not an easy process, and new validation algorithms need to be adopted by both the sender and recipient(s) of billing documents and receipts.        There are problems with digital watermarks as well. For example, if the watermark is corrupted, that may corrupt the entire data file.        
What is needed, then, is a system and method for recording financial transaction documents (such as sales bills and receipts) in the field at the point of sale/transaction, at the time of sale/transaction. The system and method should be entirely digital, avoiding paper altogether; and once the document is sent electronically, the system and method should provide for robust data validation at the receiving end. The system and method should also be practical, convenient and robust, employing digital validation processes which enable secure duplication and electronic transmission of the documents in a manner which is highly reliable, readily validated, and relies essentially only on data inherent in the transaction itself, without the need for third-party keys or validation algorithms (which can be modified for various reasons).